Asked by: Steve Rotheram (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in (a) Liverpool and (b) England were subject to sanctions in the week commencing 22 December 2014; and how many of those people had benefits withheld for that period.
Answered by Esther McVey
The Department publishes Official Statistics on Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) and Employment Support Allowance (ESA) sanction decisions and information on these statistics can be found here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/jobseekers-allowance-sanctions
The latest set of Official Statistics was released on 12 November 2014 and covers all decisions made to 30 June 2014. A summary of this data can be found here:
These statistics contain a wide set of geographical areas, sanction reason, sanctions appeals and outcomes and if required this information can be extracted using Stat-Xplore via the following link:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance on how to extract the information required from Stat-Xplore can be found at:
https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Stat-Xplore_User_Guide.htm
The information requested is not yet available. The latest data available can be found at the links above.
Asked by: Steve Rotheram (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average wait for a decision on a social fund application was in each year since 2003.
Answered by Steve Webb
Table 1 below shows the average wait (in days) for decisions on a Social Fund application for each year from 2003 and a breakdown by application type.
No data is provided for 2014. This is because the number of applications and waiting times vary seasonally, meaning that an average only covering part of the year is not comparable with whole year averages shown from 2003-2013.
Average wait (days) | Funeral Payments | Community Care Grants | Crisis Loans | Budgeting Loans | Sure Start Maternity Grants |
2003 | 13.1 | 8.3 | 1.2 | 2.7 | 4.7 |
2004 | 13.5 | 8.2 | 1.3 | 3.0 | 4.0 |
2005 | 12.1 | 7.5 | 1.4 | 2.9 | 4.0 |
2006 | 12.5 | 9.1 | 1.5 | 3.2 | 3.9 |
2007 | 13.4 | 10.9 | 1.6 | 4.5 | 4.8 |
2008 | 14.3 | 11.3 | 1.8 | 5.1 | 5.3 |
2009 | 14.8 | 13.3 | 2.0 | 5.3 | 5.0 |
2010 | 15.3 | 8.9 | 2.1 | 5.4 | 4.7 |
2011 | 13.1 | 7.5 | 2.1 | 5.0 | 4.3 |
2012 | 14.6 | 7.5 | 3.0 | 4.9 | 3.6 |
2013 | 17.1 |
|
| 5.5 | 4.0 |
Notes
1. These figures do not include applications which were processed clerically and have not yet been entered on to the Social Fund Computer System.
2. No average wait time is reported for Community Care Grants or Crisis Loans in 2013. This is because these payments were replaced by Local Welfare Provision in March 2013.
3. The clearance time for an individual Social Fund loan or grant is measured in whole working days from the date the application is received until the date the decision is taken. The minimum clearance time recorded for an individual case is one working day, even if the application is cleared immediately.
4. Cold Weather Payments are not included in Table 1. These are made automatically if the claimant is eligible at the time of the cold weather trigger, so there is no decision to be made.
5. All figures are provided to 1 decimal place.
Asked by: Steve Rotheram (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many applications were made to the Social Fund to cover the cost of funerals in each year since 2010; and how many of those applications were rejected.
Answered by Steve Webb
From the latest data available, 305,840 applications have been made for Funeral Payments in Great Britain between January 2010 and September 2014, the latest data available. In the same period there have been 151,620 refusals.
Table 1 below shows the number of applications and refusals for each year. Note that 2014 data only extends to September thus far.
| 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 (Jan-Sep) |
Applications | 66,780 | 70,990 | 66,390 | 62,200 | 39,470 |
Refusals | 33,350 | 36,330 | 34,540 | 29,200 | 18,190 |
Notes
1. These figures do not include applications which were processed clerically and have not yet been entered on to the Social Fund Computer System.
2. The figures given are the number of applications and initial refusals in the given time period and not the number of people who made applications or received awards. An individual may make more than one application in a year. Information on the number of people who made applications and received awards is not available.
.
3. The refusal figures given are based on the initial decisions made on each case and may include cases where an award was later made on review.
4. All figures are rounded to the nearest 10.